30
2 Historical Annotations
According to the right of Public Domain it was difficult to ensure the protection and
conservation of the natural environment at the Spanish coast. One of the reasons was that
conflicts arose and incompatibility existed with private interests in the coastal zone.
Like other European Member States also in Spain several administrative bodies were
responsible for the planning and management within the coastal zone. A complex vertical and horizontal distribution of responsibilities existed. To avoid further disorder of
the administration system a general framework for development was needed, especially
according to an integrated management at the coast (MERM, 2006, p. 30).
Despite the above-mentioned barriers a variety of networks, organizations and communication platforms existed, for example, the National Commission for Nature Conservation, the Environment Advisory Council or the National Water Council. Within the report it
was suggested that a similar cross-sectoral organization should be established for the coast.
Reporting Period 2006–2010
The ambition of drafting a strategy for sustainable coastal management was hardly
achieved due to several reasons. These reasons were comprehensively explained in the
progress report. One of the reasons should be highlighted in this paragraph:
By definition, if we are aiming to achieve integrated management of coastal resources, we must
reject purely sectoral strategies, which seek to maximize the gains of the sector concerned,
even if that causes other sectors with interests on the coast to suffer losses exceeding those
gains. The objective of integrated management is to achieve an optimal pattern of exploitation
for all sectors. This is where the first difficulty becomes apparent. It is impossible to include
all sectors. A decision has to be taken as to which sectors are the important ones and then
discussions have to be opened with them to achieve integration, but deciding which are the
important sectors is no easy task.
Furthermore, there are sectors that are clearly important but that would prefer to avoid
integration so as not to be restricted in their exploitation of a particular resource (this is the case
with urban development and land management), other sectors are not important but would like
to be considered so and a decision to include a sector as important will always be debatable and
disputed. Even when we reach agreement on which sectors are important, including all of them
would be totally unmanageable. (MERM, 2010, p. 3)
Consequently, it was concentrated on three, so-called, essential sectors: (i) the publicowned coastal strip, (ii) urban development and town and country planning and (iii)
environmental resource. Based on a three-step approach the development of an integrated
management approach should be achieved: (i) gathering information and diagnosis, (ii)
drafting sectoral plans and (iii) combining sectoral plans to an integrated strategy. These
steps were conducted in specified integrated management units which are coastal strips
with a more or less uniform characteristic (MERM, 2010, p. 4). Step (i) and (ii) were finished to greater or lesser extent, step (iii) was not initialized until 2010. Important steps on
the way to an integrated management strategy were cooperation agreements between the
responsible national ministry and regional governments.
14
14 More detailed description of the results in, for example, Sano et al. (2009).
2 Historical Annotations
According to the right of Public Domain it was difficult to ensure the protection and
conservation of the natural environment at the Spanish coast. One of the reasons was that
conflicts arose and incompatibility existed with private interests in the coastal zone.
Like other European Member States also in Spain several administrative bodies were
responsible for the planning and management within the coastal zone. A complex vertical and horizontal distribution of responsibilities existed. To avoid further disorder of
the administration system a general framework for development was needed, especially
according to an integrated management at the coast (MERM, 2006, p. 30).
Despite the above-mentioned barriers a variety of networks, organizations and communication platforms existed, for example, the National Commission for Nature Conservation, the Environment Advisory Council or the National Water Council. Within the report it
was suggested that a similar cross-sectoral organization should be established for the coast.
Reporting Period 2006–2010
The ambition of drafting a strategy for sustainable coastal management was hardly
achieved due to several reasons. These reasons were comprehensively explained in the
progress report. One of the reasons should be highlighted in this paragraph:
By definition, if we are aiming to achieve integrated management of coastal resources, we must
reject purely sectoral strategies, which seek to maximize the gains of the sector concerned,
even if that causes other sectors with interests on the coast to suffer losses exceeding those
gains. The objective of integrated management is to achieve an optimal pattern of exploitation
for all sectors. This is where the first difficulty becomes apparent. It is impossible to include
all sectors. A decision has to be taken as to which sectors are the important ones and then
discussions have to be opened with them to achieve integration, but deciding which are the
important sectors is no easy task.
Furthermore, there are sectors that are clearly important but that would prefer to avoid
integration so as not to be restricted in their exploitation of a particular resource (this is the case
with urban development and land management), other sectors are not important but would like
to be considered so and a decision to include a sector as important will always be debatable and
disputed. Even when we reach agreement on which sectors are important, including all of them
would be totally unmanageable. (MERM, 2010, p. 3)
Consequently, it was concentrated on three, so-called, essential sectors: (i) the publicowned coastal strip, (ii) urban development and town and country planning and (iii)
environmental resource. Based on a three-step approach the development of an integrated
management approach should be achieved: (i) gathering information and diagnosis, (ii)
drafting sectoral plans and (iii) combining sectoral plans to an integrated strategy. These
steps were conducted in specified integrated management units which are coastal strips
with a more or less uniform characteristic (MERM, 2010, p. 4). Step (i) and (ii) were finished to greater or lesser extent, step (iii) was not initialized until 2010. Important steps on
the way to an integrated management strategy were cooperation agreements between the
responsible national ministry and regional governments.
14
14 More detailed description of the results in, for example, Sano et al. (2009).